KR20160071705A - Method for manufacturing Copper-Silver Alloy for Electrical Contact Material by Using diffusion bonding - Google Patents

Abstract

(A) melting a contact material comprising silver (Ag) and a first metal to cast a first billet; (b) extruding the first billet to form a wire; (c) cutting the wire to form a chip; (d) casting the second billet using a silver alloy chip containing the first metal oxide by oxidation after oxidizing the chip; (e) cutting and assembling the second billet with a copper (Cu) or copper alloy billet to form a third billet; (f) diffusion bonding the third billet; And (g) extruding and rolling the third billet to form a copper-silver alloy sheet. The method of manufacturing a copper-silver alloy-based electrical contact according to claim 1,
In the present invention, by directly bonding the silver (Ag) alloy layer serving as a contact point and the copper layer using the diffusion bonding method, not only a good bonding interface is formed but also the formation of a copper oxide layer, which is likely to occur on these interfaces, is controlled The life of the electrical contact can be improved.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a method of manufacturing a copper-silver alloy electrical contact using diffusion bonding,

The present invention relates to a method of manufacturing a copper / silver alloy based electrical contact.

Conventionally used silver (Ag) alloy-based electrical contacts are used by being bonded to various materials in accordance with their use. Cu, Ni, bronze and the like are used as the material to be used at this time, and copper (Cu) having high electric conductivity and thermal conductivity is mainly used.

Conventional joining methods have used cold working methods such as heading. In recent years, in order to improve the productivity, the contact material is often used in the form of a strip. In such a case, the material is mainly bonded to the material by resistance welding.

Currently used strips are layers of silver (Ag) and silver (Ag), and there is a growing demand for contacts to replace the silver (Ag) layer with copper (Cu). As described above, the production of the strip material including the copper (Cu) layer uses the hot atmosphere bonding method in the overseas advanced company due to the oxidation problem of copper (Cu). However, there is a disadvantage that the production cost is expensive due to limitations such as expensive equipment construction.

Disclosure of the Invention The present invention has been conceived to solve the above-mentioned problems, and it is an object of the present invention to provide a novel electrical contact which has a sound bonding interface by utilizing a diffusion bonding method when a strip material comprising a copper layer and a silver And a method for producing the same.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a multilayer strip type electrical contact manufactured using the diffusion bonding method described above

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides a method of manufacturing a semiconductor device, comprising the steps of: (a) melting a contact material comprising silver (Ag) and a first metal to cast a first billet; (b) extruding the first billet to form a wire; (c) cutting the wire to form a chip; (d) casting the second billet using a silver alloy chip containing the first metal oxide by oxidation after oxidizing the chip; (e) cutting and assembling the second billet with a copper (Cu) or copper alloy billet to form a third billet; (f) diffusion bonding the third billet; And (g) extruding and rolling the third billet to form a copper-silver alloy sheet.

The first metal in step (a) may be at least one selected from the group consisting of cadmium (Cd), tin (Sn), indium (In), and nickel (Ni) It is preferably 20 wt% or more based on 100 wt% of the first billet.

According to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, in the step (d), the oxidation step may be carried out at 650 to 800 ° C for 3 to 24 hours under an oxygen atmosphere.

According to another preferred embodiment of the present invention, in the step (d), the second billet casting step is performed by injecting a silver alloy chip containing the first metal oxide into the metal mold by oxidation, cm < ² > to cast the second billet.

According to another preferred embodiment of the present invention, the step (d) includes the steps of: (d-1) annealing the second billet; And (d-2) performing the cold compression, hot compression, or both of the annealed second billets.

According to another preferred embodiment of the present invention, the step (f) is carried out at a temperature of 600 to 730 ° C and a pressure of 40 to 130 MPa for 1 to 10 hours, whereby the diffusion between the silver (Ag) As shown in Fig.

According to another preferred embodiment of the present invention, the manufacturing method may further include the step of (h) bonding the copper-silver alloy plate to the second metal plate. Here, the second metal plate may be silver (Ag) or a silver alloy.

Meanwhile, the present invention provides a copper-silver alloy-based electrical contact manufactured by the above manufacturing method.

The present invention can manufacture an electrical contact having a sound bonding interface by directly bonding the strip material comprising a copper layer and a silver (Ag) layer using a diffusion bonding method.

Further, in the present invention, it is possible to manufacture a strip-type electrical contact having a multi-layer by utilizing the diffusion bonding method described above. As described above, the electrical contact material of the present invention has excellent durability and reliability, and thus can be usefully used as a contact material in various fields.

1 is an FE-SEM image of a cross section of an electrical contact prepared according to Example 1. Fig.
Fig. 2 is an FE-SEM image showing the cross-section of the electrical contact prepared according to Comparative Example 1. Fig.
3 is an FE-SEM image of the electrical contact prepared in Example 1. Fig.

Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in detail.

In the present invention, in manufacturing the electrical contact of the copper-silver strip material, instead of utilizing the brazing junction, the silver (Ag) alloy layer serving as a contact point is directly bonded to the copper layer using a diffusion bonding method .

In general, brazing refers to the bonding between strip and base material, and melts and bonds filler metal. In contrast, the diffusion bonding applied in the present invention refers to a bonding between strip layers as a meaning of a negotiation, which does not include brazing, and bonds at a level of 70 to 80% of the melting point.

That is, when different kinds of objects are brought into contact with each other, diffusion occurs in which atom of each object moves to a relative object lower than its own concentration according to time and temperature. Particularly, since the metal has a high melting point, when the pressure, the temperature and the gap are controlled by artificially, the bonding occurs due to the interatomic movement in the dissimilar metal material, which is called diffusion bonding.

When the diffusion bonding is applied as described above, it is possible to improve the lifetime of the electrical contact by controlling the formation of a healthy bonding interface as well as the formation of a copper oxide layer, which is likely to occur on the bonding interface thereof. Particularly, in the present invention, bonding in a vacuum state through a process called canning and a degassing step prevents contact with oxygen (O ₂ ) to form an oxide layer, thereby suppressing formation of a copper oxide layer itself.

≪ Manufacturing method of electrical contact >

Hereinafter, a method of manufacturing an electrical contact according to the present invention will be described. However, the present invention is not limited to the following production methods, and the steps of each process may be modified or optionally mixed as required.

In a preferred embodiment of the method for manufacturing the electrical contact, (a) a step ('S10') of melting a contact material containing silver (Ag) and a first metal to cast a first billet; (b) forming a wire by extruding the first billet ('S20'); (c) cutting the wire to form a chip (S30 '); (d) casting a second billet ('S40') using a silver alloy chip containing a first metal oxide by oxidation after oxidizing the chip; (e) cutting and assembling the second billet with copper (Cu) or a copper alloy billet to form a third billet ('S50'); And (f) diffusion bonding the third billet ('S60'); (g) extruding and rolling the third billet to form a copper-silver alloy sheet ('S70'). At this time, if necessary, (h) step (S80 ') of joining the copper-silver alloy plate and the second metal plate may be further included.

Hereinafter, the manufacturing method will be described separately for each process step as follows.

(a) a first billet casting (hereinafter referred to as 'S10 step'),

First, a first billet is cast using a contact material containing silver (Ag) and a first metal.

More specifically, after a composition of a contact material containing silver (Ag) as a main component and containing a first metal is designed, the metal is injected into a melting furnace to dissolve the molten metal and then poured into a mold to cast a first billet.

Here, the casting means that the molten material is made into a billet, which is a metal ingot in a form that can be easily extruded later. At this time, the billet may be a square piece having a rectangular cross-section of 160 mm or less and a cross-sectional area of 25,600 or less, or a small-sized piece.

The first metal may be selected from the group consisting of cadmium (Cd), tin (Sn), indium (In), and nickel (Ni), as long as it is a contact material capable of forming a silver- Or more. The content of the first metal is preferably 10% by weight or more, more preferably 15 to 40% by weight based on 100% by weight of the first billet.

(b) Wire forming (hereinafter referred to as 'S20 step')

In step S20, the cast billet is extruded to form a wire.

Here, the diameter of the wire to be formed is not particularly limited, and for example, it is preferably 1 to 3Φ.

In addition, a method of forming the wire is not particularly limited in the step S2. For example, the first billet and the metal mold for wire forming are preheated at 500 to 600 DEG C, and then the first billet is injected into the metal mold, / Cm < 2 > to form a wire.

(c) Chip molding (hereinafter referred to as 'S30 step')

In the previous step S20, the formed wire is cut to form a chip. The reason for such a small cutting is to make the internal oxidation uniform and allow the internal oxidation to be completed in a short time.

The length of the chip to be formed here can be appropriately adjusted within the conventional range known in the art, and is preferably 1 to 3 mm, for example.

When a second billet, which will be described later, is cast through an oxidation process after forming a chip as described above, a second billet having a uniform distribution of the first metal oxide may be cast, do.

(d) oxidation and second billet casting (hereinafter referred to as 'S40 step'),

In step S40, the formed chip is subjected to an internal oxidation process to form an oxide, and then the oxidized chip is used to cast the second billet.

The oxidation step has the purpose of allowing oxygen to enter into the metal through heating under a high-pressure oxygen atmosphere to be solidified. As described above, the inner oxidized metal material forms an oxide, and becomes an electrical contact material material having improved electrical and mechanical life as compared with a metal material before internal oxidation.

That is, since silver (Ag) is difficult to oxidize, in the case of the Ag alloy electrical contact material, it is subjected to a process called 'internal oxidation'. This internal oxidation means that elements such as Cd, Sn, and In are selectively oxidized in the Ag with high affinity for oxidation when an intimate atmosphere of oxidation is formed under specific conditions (high temperature and high pressure). In the case of an electrical contact, this oxide layer is volatilized and absorbs the arc heat generated when opening and closing, which is an important point for performing the role of a contact. At this time, internal oxidation is referred to as pre-oxidation in which internal oxidation is performed after the product is processed according to the oxidation method, and after the internal oxidation and internal oxidation are performed, the product is processed into a product form. In the present invention, an electrical contact is manufactured by a pre-oxidation method.

At this time, the conditions for oxidizing the chip are not particularly limited. For example, it is preferable to oxidize the chip at a temperature of 650 to 800 ° C. for 3 to 24 hours in an oxygen atmosphere. Here, the oxygen partial pressure may be 4 to 10 kgf / cm ² , but is not limited thereto.

When the chip thus formed is oxidized, the first metal oxide is formed on the chip and / or the surface of the chip by oxidation of the first metal. When the second billet is cast using a chip including the first metal oxide, the first metal oxide is uniformly distributed in the second billet to be cast. According to the present invention, since the second billet having the first metal oxide is uniformly distributed, the first metal oxide is uniformly distributed in the final electrical contact, thereby providing an electrical contact having high durability and reliability.

On the other hand, the method of casting the second billet in this step S40 is not particularly limited, and can be produced according to a conventional method known in the art. For example, the oxidized chip may be cast into a circular mold and then subjected to a pressure of 160 to 180 kgf / cm ² .

In the present invention, annealing and cold compression or hot compression may be further performed to remove the stress of the cast billet and to control the density.

The annealing step removes the compressive stress and joins the material through the diffusion between the contact materials which have been cut and separated. The conditions of the annealing step are not particularly limited. For example, the annealing may be performed at 400 to 800 ° C for 4 to 8 hours after the second billet is introduced into the atmospheric heat treatment furnace. At this time, it may be performed once or more.

Further, the compressing step is a step of compressing the second billet to increase the density, and can be roughly divided into cold compressing at room temperature and hot compression compressing in a heated state. In order to increase the density after completion of the molding, cold compression, hot compression or both of them can be carried out in the present invention.

The conditions of the cold compression or hot compression step are also not particularly limited and can be appropriately adjusted within the ordinary range known in the art. For example, the cold compression may be performed at a pressure of 150 to 170 kgf / cm ² at room temperature, and the hot compression may be performed at a pressure of 170 to 190 kgf / cm ² at 600 to 650 ° C.

In the present invention, either the cold compression or the hot compression can be selectively performed, or both the cold compression and the hot compression can be performed. If necessary, the process of pressing the billet again after the heat treatment can be repeated until a desired compression density is obtained. At this time, the second billet is preheated to a sufficient temperature (700 to 850 ° C). At this time, the preheating is not particularly limited, and various methods such as atmosphere or high frequency preheating can be performed.

(e) Production of a third billet (hereinafter referred to as " S50 step &

The produced second billet is cut, and the copper (Cu) or copper alloy billet is cut according to the cross-sectional area ratio, and then the second billet and the copper-based billet are assembled to produce a third billet.

The component used in the copper alloy billet is not particularly limited as long as it is a metal component capable of forming an alloy with copper (Cu) in this field.

In the production of the third billet, a silver (Ag) layer may be separately inserted if necessary.

(f) diffusion bonding (hereinafter referred to as 'S60 step'),

In this step S60, a silver (Ag) alloy layer and a copper (Cu) or copper alloy layer are bonded to the produced third billet through equi-direction diffusion bonding.

The method and condition for the diffusion bonding can be appropriately adjusted within the range known in the art. As a preferred example of step S60, the third billet may be maintained at a temperature of 600 to 730 DEG C and a pressure of 40 to 130 MPa for 1 to 10 hours.

When the above-described conditions are maintained for the Ag-Cu contacts, wetting by the alloy liquid phase occurs over the entire contact surface of the Ag-Cu contacts, and a full bonding is formed. That is, the bonding is performed through diffusion between the silver (Ag) alloy layer and the copper layer interface. At this time, if it is lower than the above condition, a local alloy layer is formed only at the interface, and if it is higher than the above condition, the settling of the contact becomes large, and the contact performance can be deteriorated.

The bonding layer formed by the diffusion bonding is mainly composed of Ag and Cu, and when the contact is an alloy, the alloy component is further included. Such a bonding layer has a melting point higher than that of a conventionally used silver-containing layer and also has a high-temperature strength, so that it is difficult to peel off the temperature rise due to energization of a large current. The bonding strength can be equivalent to the contact strength by soldering.

In addition, since the thickness of the bonding layer can be controlled by heating temperature, heating time, pressure, etc., it is possible to control to a desired value according to the characteristics of the bonding portion.

The third billet produced through the diffusion bonding as described above can further improve the bonding strength through a process such as hot compression.

(g) Alloy plate formation (hereinafter referred to as 'S70 step')

In this step S70, the diffusion-bonded third billet is extruded and rolled to form a copper-silver alloy plate (or strip).

As a preferable example of the method for forming the alloy plate, the third billet is put into a metal mold in a strip form and then hot extruded at a pressure of 160 to 180 kgf / cm ² at a temperature of 600 ° C to 700 ° C .

In the present step S70, the extrusion is a step of manufacturing the internally oxidized contact material in a shape to press-contact. As such, when the extrusion is carried out, depending on the mold, the surface may be rough, foreign matter, and oxides may be generated, and it is necessary to finish the surface through a brush or an acid treatment process if necessary.

The contact material in the form of a strip or plate contact can be produced by the extrusion process. When the extrusion method is carried out in this manner, the distribution of the first metal oxide that is concentrated on the crystal grains and the bonding surfaces can be controlled. Therefore, the strip material (alloy plate) manufactured in this manner is less likely to cause cracks and defects in the base material, thereby improving the durability and reliability of the product.

Then, the contact material is rolled to a desired thickness to match the desired thickness.

The rolling may be performed by conventional hot rolling, cold rolling or both, which are known in the art. More specifically, the strip may be subjected to hot rolling at a temperature of 300 to 450 DEG C or by cold rolling to a desired dimension . And can be manufactured by cutting to a desired width through a slitting process.

(h) bonding with a dissimilar metal sheet (hereinafter referred to as 'S80 step'),

If necessary, the step S80 of the present invention may further include bonding the copper-silver alloy plate formed in the previous step S70 to the second metal plate. Thus, the multi-layered electrical contact of the present invention can be manufactured.

In the present invention, silver (Ag) or a silver alloy is used as the second metal plate in order to bond a copper-silver alloy plate to a second metal plate made of a dissimilar material, (Ag) is used.

In the present invention, the method of bonding the copper-silver alloy sheet to the second metal sheet may be performed according to a conventional method known in the art. For example, they can be bonded by a plasma treatment, and preferably a multilayer strip or plate contact is produced through bonding with a filler metal through plasma bonding.

As a preferable example of the plasma bonding method, the surface of the copper-silver alloy plate and the surface of the second metal plate are respectively irradiated with plasma to perform surface activation treatment, and then the surface-activated alloy plate and the second metal plate are heated and rolled Respectively.

When the alloy plate and the second metal plate are joined together by the plasma treatment as described above, the bonding strength between the alloy plate and the second metal plate can be increased.

On the other hand, the electrical contact of the present invention can be further bonded to the second metal plate (A) and the third metal plate (B) serving as a filler.

Here, the third metal plate serving as a filler material may be any of conventional filler metal materials known in the art. For example, the third metal plate may be made of copper (Cu), silver (Ag), and phosphorus Or a combination thereof.

According to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the third metal plate is an alloy of copper (Cu), silver (Ag) and phosphorus (P), and silver (Ag) P) = 14.5 to 15.5: 4.8 to 5.3. The billet may be a plate-shaped strip material manufactured by hot extrusion. In this case, the remaining amount excluding silver (Ag) and phosphorus (P) based on 100 parts by weight of the total amount may be 79.2 to 80.7 parts by weight in terms of copper content.

Through the above steps, a multilayered electrical contact having a high bonding strength of 0.1 to 3.0 mm in thickness can be obtained through heating of the alloy plate and the second metal plate and low-pressure rolling under the plasma condition after the plasma surface activation treatment.

(i) brush and slitting (hereinafter referred to as 'S7 step'),

Thereafter, the burr and the foreign substance on the surface of the electrical contact material to be bonded are removed and a brushing process and a leveling process are performed according to a conventional method known in the art to obtain a good surface roughness, and then a slitting process is performed.

At this time, depending on the surface condition required by the user, it is possible to adjust the degree of processing of the surface.

On the other hand, the present invention provides an electrical contact manufactured by the above-described method.

The electrical contact of the present invention is a form in which two or more multi-layer heterogeneous materials including a contact material layer and, if necessary, a welding material are bonded to each other. Since the first metal oxide is uniformly distributed within the electrical contact, it is excellent in durability and reliability when applied to a conductive material.

More specifically, the electrical contact of the present invention may be composed of an alloy layer in which silver (Ag) and a first metal are mixed, an alloy bonding layer (bonding layer) of silver and copper, or a copper or copper alloy layer, Since the first metal oxide is uniformly distributed in the alloy layer, durability and reliability are excellent. The material of the electrical contact may have a structure of 2 to 4 layers, and may be formed by inserting other different materials as necessary.

The electrical contact of the present invention can be used as a contact material for circuit breakers, switches, relays, switches, and the like, and can be usefully used for switches. And other technical fields in which other electrical contact materials can be usefully applied.

Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in more detail with reference to Examples. However, the following Examples are intended to illustrate one embodiment of the present invention, but the scope of the present invention is not limited by the following Examples.

[Example 1]

(Ag), 18.8wt% of cadmium (Cd), 1.0wt% of tin (Sn) and 0.2wt% of nickel (Ni) into a melting furnace and dissolving at 1200 ° C, Billets were cast. The casted first billet was subjected to a surface treatment to clean the surface, followed by pressing at a pressure of 160 kgf / mm ² . Pure Ag was also drawn in the same manner and formed into 2Φ wire.

Each formed wire was cut into a length of 2 mm to produce a chip, and then the silver alloy chip was oxidized at 750 ° C. for 24 hours in an oxygen atmosphere to form a first metal oxide in the silver alloy chip . Thereafter, the oxidized chip was put into a circular mold, and then pressed at a pressure of 170 kgf / cm ² to cast a circular second billet. The casted second billet was put into a heat treatment furnace and annealed at 600 DEG C for 8 hours. After the annealing treatment, the resultant was cold-pressed at 170 kgf / cm ² , annealed again, and then hot-compressed at 600 ° C at 170 kgf / cm ² to adjust the density of the second billet to 99% or more.

The second billet having the adjusted density was cut through a wire cut, a copper billet was cut to size, and then assembled to prepare a third billet. The prepared third billet was maintained at 675 DEG C at 98 MPa for 4 hours.

The third billet was inductively heated to 700 캜, directly extruded at 190 kgf / cm ² , and rolled to a thickness of 1.2 mm to form a copper-silver alloy plate. Thereafter, a silver / silver plate was bonded to a silver / silver plate made of silver (Ag), copper (Cu), and phosphorus (P) to prepare an electrical contact.

[Comparative Example 1]

(Ag), 18.8wt% of cadmium (Cd), 1.0wt% of tin (Sn) and 0.2wt% of nickel (Ni) into a melting furnace and dissolving at 1200 ° C, Billets were cast. The casted first billet was subjected to a surface treatment to clean the surface, followed by pressing at a pressure of 160 kgf / mm ² . Pure Ag was also drawn in the same manner and formed into 2Φ wire.

Each formed wire was cut into a length of 2 mm to produce a chip, and then a silver alloy chip was oxidized at 750 ° C for 24 hours in an oxygen atmosphere to form an oxide in a silver alloy chip . Thereafter, the oxidized chip and the pure Ag Chip were put into a circular mold, and then pressed at a pressure of 170 kgf / cm ² to cast a circular second billet. The casted second billet was put into a heat treatment furnace and annealed at 600 DEG C for 8 hours. After the annealing treatment, the resultant was cold-pressed at 170 kgf / cm ² , annealed again, and then hot-compressed at 600 ° C at 170 kgf / cm ² to adjust the density of the second billet to 99% or more.

The second billet whose density was adjusted was heated to 800 DEG C, extruded at 190 kgf / cm < ² > and rolled to a thickness of 1.2 mm to form a silver alloy plate. (Silver), copper (Cu), and phosphorus (P) were bonded to an alloy plate / silver plate (second metal plate).

[Experimental Example 1]

The FE-SEM of the electrical contacts prepared in Example 1 and Comparative Example 1 were confirmed, and the results are shown in Fig. 1 and Fig. 2, respectively.

In fact, it was confirmed that the electrical junctions prepared in Example 1 had a sound bonding interface, and the inside thereof was uniformly formed with oxides in the order of several micrometers (see FIGS. 1 to 2).

Fig. 3 shows the electrical contacts manufactured in Example 1. Fig.

Claims (10)

(a) melting a contact material comprising silver (Ag) and a first metal to cast a first billet;
(b) extruding the first billet to form a wire;
(c) cutting the wire to form a chip;
(d) casting the second billet using a silver alloy chip containing the first metal oxide by oxidation after oxidizing the chip;
(e) cutting and assembling the second billet with a copper (Cu) or copper alloy billet to form a third billet;
(f) diffusion bonding the third billet; And
(g) extruding and rolling the third billet to form a copper-silver alloy sheet
Silver alloy based electrical contact. The method according to claim 1,
In the step (a), the first metal may be at least one selected from the group consisting of cadmium (Cd), tin (Sn), indium (In), and nickel (Ni) Gt; The method according to claim 1,
Wherein the content of the first metal in step (a) is 20 wt% or more based on 100 wt% of the first billet. The method according to claim 1,
Wherein the oxidation in the step (d) is carried out at 650 to 800 ° C for 3 to 24 hours in an oxygen atmosphere. The method according to claim 1,
The step (d) is characterized in that a silver alloy chip containing a first metal oxide is injected into a metal by oxidation and then a second billet is cast by applying a pressure of 160 to 180 kgf / cm ² Wherein the copper-silver alloy-based electrical contact is made of a copper alloy. The method according to claim 1,
The step (d)
(d-1) annealing the second billet; And
(d-2) The method of manufacturing a copper-silver alloy-based electrical contact according to any one of the above (1) to (3), further comprising a step of cold-pressing the annealed second billet, hot compression, or both. The method according to claim 1,
Wherein the step (f) is carried out at a temperature of 600-730 ° C and a pressure of 40-130 MPa for 1 to 10 hours to effect bonding by diffusion between the silver (Ag) alloy layer and the copper layer interface. - Silver alloy electrical contact manufacturing method. The method according to claim 1,
(H) bonding the copper-silver alloy sheet and the second metal sheet to each other. 9. The method of claim 8,
Wherein the second metal plate in step (h) is silver (Ag) or a silver alloy. A copper-silver alloy-based electrical contact produced by the method of any one of claims 1 to 9.

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